Rural potters need skill to move with time
Potter communities in Kowkhali, Pirojpur leaving profession as they find their traditional skills age-old and ‘meaningless’
Morshed Ali Khan, back from Kowkhali
Decorated and fashionable pottery is becoming popular in urban areas but a large community of potters in Kowkhali upazila in Pirojpur district is facing an uncertain future due to lack of technical assistance and undue intervention by local authorities. Unable to earn a living from their inherited skills, many of the potter communities are now thinking of leaving their profession and expertise they acquired over generations. Over the last thirty years, the number of potter families in Shonakur, Pal Para and other area near Kowkhali river has decreased to about 35 from 150. Many have migrated to India and many have taken to professions like grocery, rickshaw-pulling and boat-rowing. Potters said it is difficult now to market even a limited production of traditional items. Talking to this correspondent recently, they said they are aware that in urban areas, pottery is nowadays an item appreciated by an increasing number of people. But lack of technical assistance has made their traditional skills 'meaningless'. Rakhal Pal of Pal Para village, who left the profession several years ago to find a teaching job at a primary school in Kowkhali, said he knows about the increasing demand for various fashionable household pottery items. But his community lacks the know-how to produce those. Sixty-five year old Haridash Pal of the same village said they are now producing mainly large earthen bowls and other small items including pots for tree saplings and earthen fishing net weights to keep the business running. These are marketed in the coastal belt of the country. "We have the best of skills in pottery but we need technical know how to produce things for markets in Dhaka, Chittagong and other urban areas," Haridash said. Traditionally, potters use fuel wood for baking their products in kilns. This has invited trouble from police. Police raided their kilns several times in the last few months and asked them to restrict their products to limited items. "They came here to ask us not to bake many items in our kilns and some of them also demanded their conveyance (for coming to the village)," said another potter. Rakhal, Haridash, Joyanti and her relatives also said that their village on the bank of the Kowkhali river is seriously threatened with erosion. Joyanti, mother of three children, said the river earlier devoured her ancestral houses. She apprehend that her new house may be washed away in the upcoming monsoon. "We appeal to authorities to save our homes from erosion and help us survive with our age old profession, but to no effect" she said.
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